Shirky, like many Internet enthusiasts, is future-positive. For him, it’s time to get on with the revolution. Forget about saving newspapers. Instead, experiment with new ways of doing journalism in the digital era.

There is one possible answer to the question “If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?” The answer is: Nothing will work, but everything might. Now is the time for experiments, lots and lots of experiments, each of which will seem as minor at launch as craigslist did, as Wikipedia did . . .

Any experiment . . . designed to provide new models for journalism is going to be an improvement over hiding from the real, especially in a year when, for many papers, the unthinkable future is already in the past.